Photographs That Need Explaining

The image is real. The caption is the problem.

What belongs hereThe photograph is authentic and the story attached to it online is wrong, incomplete, or invented.

2 files

Photographs That Need Explaining2 sources

The astronaut who took the first confirmed photograph of the Great Wall from orbit could not see the wall

Leroy Chiao shot it with a 180 mm telephoto in 2004. He said afterwards that he never saw the Great Wall, and wasn’t sure his picture showed it.

False

Jul 26, 2026

Photographs That Need Explaining1 source

NASA photographed the “Black Knight” satellite — and catalogues it as space debris

A dark object drifting over the South Atlantic, shared for a quarter of a century as a 13,000-year-old alien satellite. NASA’s public catalogue says what it is, in a field of its own.

False

Jul 26, 2026

← All files

Files in Photographs That Need Explaining

The astronaut who took the first confirmed photograph of the Great Wall from orbit could not see the wall

NASA photographed the “Black Knight” satellite — and catalogues it as space debris